Tracing Quotations
Graham Wallas? E. M. Forster? André Gide? Anonymous Little Girl? Anonymous Old Lady? Herbert Samuel? W. H. Auden? C. S. Lewis? Arthur Koestler? Christopher Hollis? Dear Quote Investigator: Pre-verbal and non-verbal thoughts are vitally important. Yet, there is an intimate relationship between thinking and using language especially when analysis and reflection are required. A family …
Continue reading “How Can I Know What I Think Till I See What I Say?”
Friedrich Nietzsche? Viktor E. Frankl? Thomas Common? Anthony M. Ludovici? Walter Kaufmann? R. J. Hollingdale? Ilse Lasch? Dear Quote Investigator: Life can be aggravating and even agonizing. Yet, a steady internal purpose helps to make difficulties endurable together with the thought that happiness and pleasure will someday return. Here is an apposite adage: One who …
Continue reading “If We Have Our Own ‘Why’ of Life, We Shall Get Along With Almost Any ‘How’”
University of Oxford? Theresa Russell? Edna Worthley Underwood? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I have been told with the highest level of confidentiality that the following comical definition has been employed at the University of Oxford: Secret: You may tell it to only one person at a time. Would you please explore the provenance of this …
Continue reading “Secrecy: The Art of Telling a Thing To Only One Person At a Time”
Carl Sagan? Martin Rees? William Wright? William Housman? W. J. Sollas? Dugald Bell? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The existence or non-existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life is a highly contentious subject. Some thinkers who are open to the possibility of interstellar aliens also believe that the current evidence is inadequate; hence, they advocate using radio telescope …
Continue reading “Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence of Absence”
Fyodor Dostoevsky? Andrew H. MacAndrew? Constance Garnett? Max Tegmark? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The famous Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky contended that simply staying alive would not make a person content. A person must find something to live for. Strictly speaking, this viewpoint was articulated by a character in a story by Dostoevsky and not by …
Mark Twain? Josh Billings? Henry Wheeler Shaw? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Writing well requires the selection of properly expressive words. There is an enormous difference between selecting ‘lightning bug’ versus ‘lightning’. Apparently, Mark Twain said something similar to this, but I was surprised to discover that Twain credited his friend Josh Billings with crafting the …
Vladimir Lenin? Joseph Stalin? Bogdan Raditsa? Ludwig Von Mises? Mario Scelba? Edward Derwinski? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Historically, the term “useful idiot” has referred to a naive or unwitting ally of a ruthless political movement especially a communist movement. Supposedly, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin used this expression contemptuously of non-communists who aligned themselves …
Abraham Lincoln? William De Britaine? Roger L’Estrange? Italian Proverb? Benjamin Franklin? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Evaluating complex legal issues requires expertise. Abraham Lincoln reportedly employed the following adage. Here are two versions: If you are your own lawyer you have a fool for a client. He who represents himself has a fool for a client. …
Continue reading “A Man Who Is His Own Lawyer Has a Fool for a Client”
Albert Einstein? Ray Cummings? Mark Twain? Arthur C. Clarke? John Archibald Wheeler? Arthur Power Dudden? Susan Sontag? Dear Quote Investigator: Albert Einstein has received credit for a humorous remark about time: The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. Would you please explore the provenance of this quip? Quote Investigator: …
Continue reading “Time Is What Keeps Everything From Happening At Once”
Charles Dickens? Henry Southgate? Frank J. Wilstach? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The popular writer Charles Dickens vividly depicted the neighborhoods, lives, and habits of the disparate social classes of Victorian England. His rich language employed clever similes such as: An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself. …